Tom Wolfe has new novel and publisher
NEW YORK (AP) - January 2, 2008 "The opportunity to work with the American master Tom Wolfe is
the kind of thrill and challenge that people entering book
publishing dream of," Little, Brown Publisher Michael Pietsch said
Wednesday.
"Tom Wolfe is one of the great writers of his generation and he
has been one of FSG's most significant and best-loved authors,"
Farrar publisher Jonathan Galassi said. "We are sorry to part
company, and wish him all happiness and success in this next phase
of his work."
One of the original "New Journalists" of the 1960s, the
76-year-old Wolfe is known for such best-selling novels as "The
Bonfire of the Vanities" and "A Man in Full," and for such
nonfiction classics as "The Right Stuff" and "The Electric
Kool-Aid Acid Test."
His new novel, "Back to Blood," will be a "Bonfire"-like
tour of Miami, taking on "class, family, wealth, race, crime, sex,
corruption, and ambition." Among the characters: a Cuban nurse
married to a French sex doctor, a Haitian woman "who passes for
Anglo" and "a freshman journalist on the trail of a
Russian-mob-comes-to-Miami story."
Publication is scheduled for 2009.
Wolfe had been with Farrar, Straus since 1965 and the release of
his first book, "The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline
Baby." His work has sold millions of copies, but his most recent
novel, "I Am Charlotte Simmons," was a critical and commercial
disappointment.
According to a publishing official familiar with negotiations,
Farrar, Straus and Wolfe could not agree on a new contract: Having
lost money on "Charlotte Simmons," the publisher was offering a
reduced advance for "Back to Blood."
Writers switch publishers all the time, but Farrar, Straus has a
remarkable history of company loyalty, holding on to Wolfe, Susan
Sontag, Isaac Bashevis Singer and others for decades.
Wolfe's agent, Lynn Nesbit, said the parting "wasn't at all
acrimonious." She also noted that Wolfe's editor at Little, Brown,
Pat Strachan, used to edit the author at Farrar, Straus, working on
"The Right Stuff" and "The Bonfire of the Vanities" among
others.
"It's an exciting way to start the new year," Nesbit said.
"He's feeling very energized."
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Little, Brown is a division of Hachette Book Group USA. Farrar,
Straus is part of the Macmillan publishing group, owned by the
German-based Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck.